Still photography and motion picture capture by traditional film/cinematography or more recently by electronic means such as electronic still or video image capture rely on fixed focal length optics/lenses. For over a hundred years, viewing by a viewer or playback to a viewer, the captured imagery is presented for viewing at a static focal length, e.g., on a flat piece of paper in the case of photographs, emitted from a flat surface in the case of liquid crystal or plasma display, projected onto the back of a diffuse surface for viewing from the front, or projected onto a reflective surface such as a movie screen. In other words, the viewer's accommodation does not change while viewing images of different objects at different depths in different regions within the presented imagery. Even if the viewer's eyes change in convergence angle, as in stereoscopic video, the accommodation remains the same. This leads to cognitive discomfort.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,324 shows a method and apparatus for providing, in response to successive image signals and a control signal, the successive images at various apparent distances. If the images are stereoscopic, the harmonious natural relationship between accommodation and convergence may be preserved so as to avoid cognitive strain otherwise experienced by the viewer. The images may have a highly detailed component which has its image content changed according to changes in the direction of a monitored one or more visual axes. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,094,182 and 6,246,382 disclose but claim different aspects of the same subject matter. Although stereoscopic motion pictures, computer generated stereoscopic imagery and video, and even consumer stereoscopic cameras have begun to be introduced, techniques for addressing accommodation have proved slow to become adopted in the present commercial marketplace due to inertia and perhaps also due to the relative complexity of the possible technical solutions and the attendant expense. There have been many devices disclosed along these lines over the last decade, notably from the University of Washington in a “scanned beam display with adjustable accommodation” by Tidwell et al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,281,862), and a “variable fixation viewing distance scanned light displays” by Schowengerdt et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0117289). Another notable disclosure of a “3D autostereoscopic display with true depth perception” was recently disclosed by Ilya Agurok (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0032482) but, so far as is known, none of the disclosed devices have so far actually been made or used in any consumer or military display device.
The above-mentioned traditional still photography and motion picture capture by fixed focal length optics/lenses has also been accompanied by those of skill in the art using narrow field of view lenses. There have been some efforts to change this situation, notably by Fred Waller in the “Cinerama” initiative of the 1950s in which imagery of the same scene taken from three relatively narrow field of view cameras were presented alongside each other to spectacularly increase the horizontal field of view presented in special theaters with three screens abutted side-by-side for a nearly seamless presentation. Although Cinerama presented a spectacular wide field of view, it failed not because audiences rejected it or grew bored with it (in fact it was a sensation at the time), but for other reasons, including the fact that there were too many problems involved with projecting three 35 mm films simultaneously. Moreover, exhibitors were reluctant to risk an investment in the necessary new equipment required to present a non-standard format. Studios/distributors no doubt feared that the success of any new infrastructure of this sort might seriously diminish the value existing films held in vaults, in circulation or, as yet unreleased.
What is needed is a way to bypass entrenched financial interests by providing new ways to capture and view still and video imagery that provides a wide field of view and that permits natural stereoscopic capture/viewing for both amateurs and professionals without high investment in infrastructure.